The Irish readers among you pondering a radical change of career could do worse than consider this vacancy down at Dublin-based Global Fruit Co. Ltd, which is currently a bit short-handed in its banana-ripening department:
Trainee Assistant Banana Ripener
Global Fruit Co. Ltd is the sole authorised distributor for Del Monte …

COMMENTS

Salary

Of course there are banana ripeners

Did you think the ripened all by them self?

When picked the bananas are green and have their ripening halted by the way they are packed. They are then ripened and repacked in a 'packhouse' using a 'Ripening Stage Guide' which is used to judge the ripeness. Most bananas are ready to ship at stage 3 minus and are then moved to the supermarkets' warehouses in trucks that are kept at 14 degrees centigrade. Bananas die and the flash goes gray and hard if refrigerated.

If you have any bananas at home that are going to go over-ripe then peel, slice and freeze them. Then put the frozen slices into your blender with some milk and a spot of honey for instant banana ice-cream. A little more milk makes a nice thick milk shake.

Is Mick really the best stereotypical Oirish name you could come up with?

Poor industrial relations

All those things

you've never heard of before, eh? As Trevor said, bananas are difficult to handle and you have to provide all sorts of fuss so that nit-picky king customer gets them in a near perfect stage, maybe a little green, but without even a hint of brown spots. Watch more of those stupid "how the world works" documentaries for adults on your favourite dumb-me-down-into-total-acceptance network.

S'true

Jaysus

Not only did we have to endure the 800 years and the Cromwell but now we have to endure you brits taking the mick out of our banana ripeners. And sure isn't there vitriolic hatred just dripping from every word.

International Measurement Unit of Flame Temperature

Hot on the heels of the Reg's SI Unit revision programme, I feel it's time for some more honorary additions.

Henceforth the international SI unit for measuring the temperature of internet flames shall be known as the Bevan, or bV, where 1bV is the flame energy required to raise the temperature under a Reg hack's collar by 1 degree centigrade at sea level.

Usage: "The response to the recent Sheep in a Vacuum article generated a flame temperature of 16.4bV".

Actually Bananas are big business in Ireland

They're one of our biggest exports (and naturally enough imports too) one company managed to convince the courts that ripening was 'Manifacturing' so they benifit from really low corporation tax as a result!

Ireland imported a total of 48,788 tonnes of bananas into Ireland in 2005 (valued at Euro 26.214m)- In the same year we exported a total of 9,109 tonnes of bananas (valued at Euro 8.57m). So- contrary to popular belief, its not a major agricultural commodity from Ireland's perspective(particularly when you look at beef etc). I couldn't be arsed looking up stats for 2006- but they are available from our central statistics office.

For those genuinely interested in banana ripening- they are artificially ripened, in a manner similar to oranges (which coincidentally are also picked green) in ethylene oxide. This gives the skin a nice yellow colour, while maintaining a reasonable shelf life for the supermarkets (which is why a fresh banana in the supermarket will have a really thick skin and is quite hard- a few days on the shelf at ~20 degrees will ripen it properly).

Banana Ripeners?

Some of those rude, southern states of Australia like to call us Queensland residents, Banana Benders. So it appears that people believe, Bananas' bend *AND* ripen themselves. What kind of miraculous food product do people think they are?

Trees are perennials

Bananas are annuals (in some climates). the trunk is actually just a thick fleshy stem and bananas grow on a new one each season.

I wonder what would happen if the trainee WASN'T good with excell... read the wrong columns and send out the bananas that arrived the day previous while several tons of mouldering bananas in the back room are busy learning how to make fire?